Yellow Pages
by phfina
Summary: Chapter summary: Yes, I took ballet, and mandolin lessons, too, by the way, so I could sing and dance. But that's not the kind of dance I do now, and that's not what I'm talking about here. Unless, of course, a client wants me to dance, but now-a-days that request usually led to other things, anyway.
1. The Call

**Chapter Summary:** Sarah's Escort Service. You won't find it in the Yellow Pages, alongside other escort service, because we're an exclusive club, by referral only, catering to ... _select_ tastes and needs. It's a service run by women, ... for women. And I got the call from Sarah today. Three weeks after I quit on her, and on life.

* * *

I got the call earlier today.

I stared a my phone a long time as it rang, stared at the caller id, bound and determined not to answer it. Promising myself I'd let the call drop to voice mail so I could just delete it.

Somehow, my promise just ... broke. Like my non-existent heart.

"Hello, Sarah," I said, my voice tightly controlled.

"Mel," she said. "Hi."

Silence on the line.

Then, "Look, Mel," Sarah said quickly, "I hate to ask this of you, but we have a client scheduled for today and Emily, her escort, fell through, ... and ..." she paused, then quickly continued, "could you ..."

"I don't do that anymore, Sarah," I said cutting her off. "Not since the last guy I escorted nearly beat me to death. I'm not in the business anymore, ask somebody else."

That was low, I know. Sarah's service wasn't like other places, places that treated me like a piece of meat. No. Sarah's was different. I had friends there. Sarah was one of them, and I missed them. Missed them badly.

Sarah's escort service catered to a very special clientele: they were well-to-do and they were all women, and if any of them had any special needs or preferences, that had to be stated well in advance of the requested escort, and if a girl on call didn't want to do anything, anything at all, she had a right to back out, no questions asked, with a full refund to the client, of course.

And 'preferences' didn't always mean kink. Sometimes it was something like 'I'm in a wheelchair, and I want to be treated like a human being for a while, and not an object of pity,' or 'My husband is away three weeks every month. I just want somebody to talk with.'

But the life...

I couldn't do this anymore.

"Mel," Sarah pleaded. "I know. I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry about that, but ... please, Mel, we're not like that. We've screened her, she's ... she's okay, okay, Mel? It's just a one-time thing, I'm sure, and she's ..."

"She's what?" I asked impatiently.

Then I grimaced. _Shit!_ I wasn't supposed to care what 'she' was, because there was no 'she' in my life nor on my calendar, and there wasn't going to be.

Sarah was quiet.

_Shit! Fuck, and shit!_

I sighed.

"What happened with Emily?" I asked.

Emily was very dependable: a sweet girl, and yes, there are sweet girls in the business, okay, we're all not jaded hard-hearted fucks, grubbing after money.

Not all of us.

"She got in a car accident this morning driving to her job," Sarah said quietly.

"Oh, my God!" I exclaimed, "Emily! Is she okay?"

"Yeah," Sarah said. "I mean, well, yeah, she's in physical therapy. She got rear-ended at a stop light and has pretty bad whiplash. But she can walk, and sit, and stand, thank God! She can go to her job on a limited basis but ..."

"But she can't escort this ... person." I finished for Sarah.

Some of us had day-time jobs and 'normal' lives, and also escorted. Like Emily. Sweet, girl-next-door Emily.

Not that I crushed on her at all, ever, what with her plain, open face, covered in freckles and red hair that made me just wanna ... _ooh!_

Red heads. My kryptonite.

Right, Julia?

I sighed again. And tried not to think of my high-school sweetie, and how happily married-with-kid she is now. Married to the _man_ of her dreams.

Jeff is a really, really sweet guy. And Annie is the sweetest little girl Julia could ever have.

Just not with me.

I'm happy for them. Really. I am.

"And you can't get anybody else?" I tried helplessly.

I could've said Sarah's next words for her. "Mel, if I could have, I would have, but ..."

We knew each other that well. And we're both women. We were like, ... almost, ... sisters. Or an old married couple.

Well, Sarah was old. In her early fifties. And I was old, too.

Twenty-three years old.

Yeah. That's me, a twenty-three year old ... 'escort.' Dad'd be so proud if he ever found out.

Yeah. 'But.'

"Yeah," I said, "but here you are calling me."

"Mel, please," Sarah entreated.

"And you can't reschedule?" I pressed.

"She's in town this weekend only on a business trip," Sarah explained apologetically.

"And you screened her?" I asked incredulously. "After she, what? Looks you up in the yellow pages and calls for an escort for a nice night out after her business conference or whatever?"

"Come on, Mel," Sarah said, hurt and exasperated. "You know we don't operate that way. She was referred by a friend, and she called well in advance."

A 'friend:' one of our dear clients. All of them rich, nice ladies, very discreet and very well-behaved.

They had to be. Sarah has no problem whatsoever dismissing a client who got out of hand.

'Thank you for your business, but we don't cater to these particular tastes. Might I suggest one of these other services in the enclosed attached document? Again, thank you for your business, but please do not request our services again.'

I've seen her sign these letters she printed on her ivory stationery and send them off by certified mail.

Sarah could be fiercely protective of her girls and as cold as ice to anyone who tried to take one step over the line of the agreed-upon behaviors.

Now if a client wanted to get ... 'frisky' and a girl wanted to play along, then Sarah was fine turning a blind eye to a girl and a client having some ... 'fun.' That was none of Sarah's business.

Sarah's business was her girls, and her clients: women who wanted to be happy, needed to be, paid for it and got paid for sharing something these women so desperately needed and the world so did not give them: intimacy, privacy, a quiet moment, a listening ear, some goddamn sympathy. Love. Just for a little while, someone there who understood, and cared.

Yes, we weren't an escort service, not really: we were a caring service.

We cared for women in a world that didn't care.

And that was something money couldn't buy: care.

And you look at me with that look when I say that. I'm aware of the irony, but you aren't. Sarah was, too. That's why she started her business. Anybody could set up an 'on-call' service and have girls service to particular (physical) needs, and we could do that with the best of them.

No, better than the best of them, because what money bought from them, it didn't buy from us, because we gave it to them. We cared, when nobody else would.

Our repeat customers? Our referrals? Through the roof and gold-plated. Sarah's word was a guarantee of satisfaction, when a woman called, she was cared for and the worse moment for her was the end of the special time alone with the girl she was with, because ...

Well, you know why 'because.' Because she had to go back out into that cold, hard, callous, careless world, and keep doing what she did: a doctor's wife or a corporate C.E.O. or whatever she did and never, ever got a word of thanks for all the hard work everyone took for granted from her.

And we were there for her when she needed a respite from the grind. We were there to push away the world with its relentless demands and to ... relent, relent to her for just a brief moment in time, to love her and to be loved by her, how ever she needed, how ever we needed.

That, and nothing else.

Money could buy sex, but it couldn't buy us and it couldn't buy her that stillness, warmth, and love.

Money couldn't. We had to do that, we had to make that moment for her, we had to create that space where she could just be, just fucking be without the world trying to tear her apart.

Yes, the worst moment was for her to leave our embrace ... my embrace ... and go back into the world.

We had a very high repeat business.

And we had girls who did their job because they _liked_ to do their job.

I mean, think about it. Wouldn't you like to be with a woman, a high-power executive, or a wife and mother of three or four or one or none, be with her, and watch her unwind and watch the tension just fall away, and watch her become a human being, again, or for the first time in a long, long time, and talk with her and listen to what she had to say, to hear the problems she's dealing with, at work or at home, and watch her worry and nerve or power through those problems, but then, set them aside, and not worry about problems, and not worry how she could make it all fit into her schedule, to not even have a schedule, just be with you, and finally, _finally,_ relax into your arms, and breathe out a sigh nigh onto a death rattle, and cry about how hard it all is and how unfair it is, or just throw her head back and laugh and laugh and laugh and realize she's laughing with you, laughing because she finally gets to be silly without anybody judging her, and ...

Yeah. It wasn't a job for us. Maybe at first, and maybe we needed the money to pay the rent. New York City, no matter where you lived, can be rather ... expensive for a girl _not_ holding a C.E.O. seat or not married to a stock broker (like, how many women stock brokers you know? They don't have a glass ceiling, because they have a 'no-admittance' into that exclusive gentlemen's club. Not that you'd catch me saying that, or thinking that, when I was with some of my gentlemen clients). And we need money, too. _Shocker._

But ...

It may have been the pay, and the exclusivity, that drew us in at first.

But it was Sarah the kept us in. The respect she showed for us as human beings, not as human traffic. And the respect of the clientele. They _needed_ us, and they appreciated us and respected us, our time, and what we did for them, just as we respected them.

A hooker? She _wants_ the wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am. Why? Get in and get out, please, so I can get back to my pointless life, and you can get back to yours.

We took our time. You want sex? Fine. You want it right now? Fine. No problem. I'm a healthy young woman, and I can take whatever you can dish out.

Most of the time, with most of my clients.

But what about afterwards? Do you want to lounge in bed and talk? Or quiet time to think? Or some cuddle-time to _not_ think?

That's what most of these women needed more than a quick release. Some didn't want the sex at all, or not right away, or not on the first date, even. They really did want an escort, a companion, a friend to go shopping with, or somebody to share a drink at the bar or a night club, and when a man got too friendly, she could say, 'I'm with her,' or, if she were timid (some of them were, not many), we could step forward and tell the jock to get the fuck out, or he'd be holding his dick in his hand on the way to the ER so the doctors could sew it back on.

Not that I ever carried out the threat, but I've got an arsenal in my purse, and have been taking aikido for how long? Since through high school?

Ten years? Has it really been ten years? Wow.

Aikido wasn't a way to fuck a guy up, but it sure could move him around and introduce the word 'pain' to him in ways and in joints that he didn't know he had.

I got a lot of new respect from some of my clients when I whipped out my badass with a guy who couldn't take 'no' for a hint.

Hilarious, that one time when one dude brought back two friends, so I just had to kick all three of their asses.

I _love_ it when a guy screams like the little bitch he is, his face pressed into the snow and mud, and me riding on his back, a cowgirl, and that made him the cow. I just _love _that.

Made me cocksure. Heh. 'cock'...sure.

But then there was that one time, when I was with a (male) client, not on-call for Sarah, and ...

And I let my guard down, and I didn't read the vib, or I ignored it: I needed the money. I mean, I _really_ needed the money, as the modeling (my legit work) had been dry for months, and so...

And so, today I'm lucky to be alive. Can you rape an escort girl on-call? Sure you can, but that was the least that guy did to me, after he blackjacked the back of my head, and I woke up in agony to a nightmare that just didn't go away, even after he did when he ... 'finished' with me.

That little visit to the hospital was unpleasant, after the cleaning lady found what was left of me.

They could heal my wounds, but they couldn't heal ... me.

At least he didn't go to work on my face, so I have that to be thankful for. Facial reconstructive surgery can be very expensive, I hear, and I don't know if my health insurance covers that.

Bastard. If I ever see him again, I won't touch his face, either. But he'll wish I did after I stuff his family jewels down his throat.

And now that badass girl I used to know packed up her bags and left me, and all that was left of me was ... was this, an empty shell, unable to give anymore because shattered girl can't give. A shattered girl can only close herself off from the world, curl up under the quilt her mom's friend gave her on her futon and just pray it would all end.

And be disappointed, again, the next morning when she woke up _not_ dead ... on the outside, that is.

So I was out. I told Sarah this. I checked out of the business, I checked out of modeling, I checked out from life.

But I didn't flush my cell phone down the toilet. My one mistake.

At least Sarah gave me a few weeks to mope. A few weeks to live with myself and my misery, and a few weeks to realize that misery didn't pay the bills.

And there were bills, even on East Houston street (and that's pronounced 'how-stun' not 'hyou-stun,' This is New York City, not Texas, for goodness sake) ... not _precisely_ a ghetto, but Spanish was heard more than English was outside my studio apartment's window.

Yeah, the bills.

Isn't life grand? To know that everything you do is to pay the Man.

I sighed.

Sarah knew what my sigh meant.

"So, you'll take it?" she asked, dimming the brightness and relief in her voice. Barely.

"Just gimme the info, Sarah, okay? And, oh, you own me, big-time," I growled.

A pause from her. "Sweetie, did you mean to say I 'owe' you?"

"Huh?" I asked, confused, and angry that I caved in, caved in to going out into the world again, just with one fucking phone call.

"Never mind," Sarah said in a conciliatory voice. "I'll email you her dossier and the rendezvous."

I love Sarah. She's, like, Old World.

Classy women wanted to be treated with class, and Sarah was all class.

"'Kay," I said, tiredly.

My bones groaned with tiredness, not because I hadn't slept, but because that's all I had been doing these last few weeks out of the hospital, sleeping and hiding, and now I had to put my backbone back into my spineless body, and woman-up, and face the world, and be brave and in control and strong, and attentive and caring, when, _fuck,_ I wanted somebody to do that for me.

But all my relationships had been nightmares, and I found being alone heartbreaking, but that was way, way better than breaking another girl's heart.

And, every relationship, that's what I did. I broke Julia's heart, I broke Saga's heart, I broke ...

You don't want the list, do you? I don't want it either, but that's what I live with: my list.

So, these _rendezvous,_ as Sarah called them, were much, much better for a girl like me. I could be attentive and caring and smart in small doses and then when that was done, I could break away, run away, and hide in myself, a shell of a person, hiding in her shell, all alone, just the way I needed it to be now.

And ... but it also served the woman's needs and made her happy for that time.

And I needed that more than she did. Seeing somebody else happy?

It gave me a reason to draw breath, when I had no reason otherwise.

"Mel-mel," Sarah said softly, and my chest squeezed so tightly over my heart I thought it would come out in pieces through my rib cage, "I really do owe you, big-time," she said.

"Yeah, you do," I said coldly, but then relented, "but you always do pay what you owe, and that's why I lo-..."

My voice stuck in my throat. I couldn't go on, and I couldn't breathe, so I wondered who was making these panting-gasping sounds into my phone.

I felt Sarah smile, even though we weren't on Facetime.

"'Kay, sweetie," she said sweetly, understandingly. "Knock 'er dead, killer. Love you."

And she rung off.

"I..." I whispered into the dead connection. "I love you, too, Sarah."

Shit, and fuck my face, I said the L-word.

And I couldn't be angry at Sarah for dropping the L-bomb first.

She said it. She meant it. She said it off-the-cuff, so I could laugh it off with a 'luv you, too, babes,' if I wanted to, or ... I could take what she meant.

I stared at my phone a long, long time.

* * *

**A/N:** So, there's this movie: "A Perfect Ending" and I've never seen it, just saw the fantastic preview, and said, 'Ooh! I have to watch that sometime!' and never thought I'd write to it. And I didn't plan to now, either, but then I got a review in Medea about me writing a story from even the yellow pages that would be smart and smexy (shout out to my lovely number09: thank you, sweetie!), and I got to ... thinking.

Now, `phfina thinking is a very, very bad thing.

So, a woman looks up a service in the Yellow Pages, and then all this happened, and it's _not_ a Perfect Ending (because I didn't see the movie), but I do acknowledge, and thank it as an inspiration that I only realized after I was half-way through writing this chapter.

I was like, writing away, then I realized the girl was reluctant to take the job, and that the house mommy was scared, too, and then I had the _Holy Fuck! This happened in that movie, too!_ moment.

Again, this story is _not_ the movie (after reading its synopsis on wikipedia) (oh, and donate to them, like I did ... you know you want to) ('cause if wikipedia shuts down, I'll be pissed, and you _do not_ want a pissed-off `phfina in your hands, I tell you what!) ... (A pissed-off `phfina 'in' your hands, or 'on' your hands? Depends on what we're doing, to each other, at the time, I guess ... hehehe! ;) ... and we're going to go places in this story the movie didn't go to, and the movie went places I'm not planning on stopping by, either, so, read my story, watch the movie, enjoy both! :)

Oh, and p.s. if you're wondering if Mel-mel is going to fuck Anne's brains out (Anne is the scaredy widdle mousy-housy wifey in this story), then my answer to you is: eh, that might happen, ... maybe.

`phfina scampers off, giggling at your enraged look at her so-the-subtle teasingly dropped hints.


	2. Housewife

**Chapter summary:** Okay, when Sarah asked me to cover for Emily ... well, I do the thirty-something professional crowd, but this ...? Forty-six? Soccer mom? What the hell were we going to talk about? 'Oh, my daughter dresses just like you!' she'd exclaim. That's just ... great.

* * *

I looked at the dossier on my laptop, and I could feel my jaw dropping.

Mrs. Anne Scott. Not her real name, I'm sure, but ...

Forty-six. Forty-fucking-six, and a house mom, prim and proper from Greenwich, Connecticut.

Rich bitch.

But the age difference. Twice my age. Twice. That'd be an issue. A client has to be comfortable around you, but if she's talking about her kids getting married and ... all that. I mean, yes, my clients were older, but late thirties I could handle, because maybe some of the things they were talking about I could relate to: those women were more career-focused, and usually not from a senior management perspective. Usually. But when you got to the forties, and fifties, then we both kind of talked past each other, and I'd have to pretend to try to be much older, being interested and engaging in her concerns, what she was talking about and mulling over, ... things I had no reference to at all: mergers and grandchildren? How could I relate to those things?

But it was actually much worse for her. She'd have to pretend to try to be tolerant of my youth or try, and fantastically fail, to be much younger. An older woman trying to be twenty-ish? But failing horribly and acting like a pre-teen because that's her frame of reference, that's how she sees women my age? And her seeing that her trying to 'relate' to my age is really insulting me, just a slap to the face?

Those rendezvous just didn't work out for me. Emily could make those work, but she catered to the mothering type. She could crack the cold, hard exteriors to the hearts of even the most senior and ruthless C.E.O.s, and her clients, literally, loved her. Some wanted to love her a little too much. There was talk sometimes of transfer of custody, changing wills ... _Boy!_ Did they ever love her!

But the whole being mothered thing? Not my bag.

I wasn't mothered, growing up, and I sure as hell wasn't looking for it now. I had my college degree in anthropology (thanks, Dad!), I had my own studio apartment in NYC so I could pursue modeling and my ... secondary sources of income. I'm a grown woman now, out in the world. I don't need somebody else to call me 'baby,' and coddle me and tell me what to do in little Mommy-loves-baby tones.

My intelligence is insulted enough already as it is, being sized up for my looks. So I don't need to go seeking out condescension: all I need to do is ride the subway to ... anywhere, and it'll find me just fine, thank you very much, with all the looks and stares I get.

Sometimes I'm tempted to whip out my hanky and offer it to some of these bankers and brokers in their tailored suites. 'You know,' I'd say, 'you'd drool less if you swallowed occasionally.'

But I'm not sure they'd get my sarcasm. You need a brain attached and functioning to keep up with a girl who's a looker, and on top of that, has a brain, too.

But this one ...

Forty-six and a house wife? What the hell were we going to talk about? Giving the kids rides to soccer practice in the mommy van and exchanging recipes for ham, cabbage and boiled potatoes?

I looked up from my laptop and hissed a frustrated _'fuck me' _at the ceiling.

Why did I take this job again?

I slapped my laptop closed, angrily, and then, damn it! I had to reopen the lid again, just so annoyed with myself, so I could write down the address of the hotel and the suite number where prim and proper 'Ms. Scott' was holed up, probably steeling her nerves with the mini bottle of Scotch she raided from the pantry.

Heh. Mrs. Scott with a bottle of Scotch. That's an image.

_Ooh! Look at me, raiding the pantry, drinking Scotch on my own! I'm so brave!_

I sighed, rolling my eyes at the image of the plucky, brave and daring little housewife on her first foray into the exotic and mysterious world of lesbiotic sex.

I wonder if she'll write in her journal just that: "Ooh, I had lesbiotic sex! and I was swept away into a whirling ocean of desire and passion with an exotic and mysterious young woman of foreign extraction with beautiful olive-toned skin and almond eyes!"

White American women! I bet when she spies me through the door to her suite, she'll pee herself, just a little bit.

Emily's Irish. I'm not.

And, being Lebanese ... that automatically brands me as 'exotic' and 'mysterious' in this part of the country.

I will never know why my mom moved to Connecticut (most very definitely _not_ a Lebanese enclave with it's less-than-one-percent minority population) from Little Lebanon: Lake Charles, Louisiana.

Oh, that's right: because she married dear old Dad. And then had me.

You say the word 'Connecticut' in Sicily, and they say 'Middletown.' And you know why? Because _at least_ one of their relatives lives there.

I grew up in Connecticut on two kinds of food: pasta, and antipasta, because we were _always_ over at my Dad's relatives houses, and they were _always_ worried I was wasting away, and they were _always _pissed I didn't take seconds. You _had_ to take seconds, even if you were only half-Italian, and taking thirds meant 'I love you, too, Nana.' So, eating only 'firsts'?

My extended family worried a lot about me when I was growing up. They called me 'wee skin and bones,' and wondered how I would ever marry if there were nothing for a guy (an Italian guy: square head, no neck, hair on his palms) to look at. They're Italians. And now that I'm on my own? They worry more.

I get calls, ... from Aunts, entreating me to 'pop over' so we can drink some herbal tea and have cookies, and they can ask about my career, but really want to know when I was getting married and having kids, lots of kids, because Dad wasn't getting any younger, and Nana had died, broken hearted that she didn't get to see more great grandchildren than she already had from her favorite and prettiest granddaughter.

But 'pop over' to Tolland, Connecticut from East Houston, NYC. Yeah, I'll just pop over in fifteen minutes, no problems!

Who was gonna pay for the Amtrak ticket again, which wasn't cheap, but the alternative? There was no way I was ever going to ride Greyhound again! No way. Ever.

Greyhound bus stops give me the creeps, and Greyhound busses are populated by them.

Not my worry anymore. I could make my excuses now: I don't own a car; I don't need one, and it gave me the perfect reason not to visit them. If they wanted to see me, they could come down and visit me, and for most of them, who had lived their entire lives never venturing five miles from their hometown, except to go to college at UCONN ('Go, Huskies!'), they wouldn't be coming to the big, bad city to visit their little niece.

I was safe from them, and their prying questions, and their Aunterly-advice.

For now, anyway.

So they weren't my problem anymore. This Mrs. 'Scott' was.

I sighed, and got dressed for our ... _rendezvous._

And then, it hit me a ton of bricks. This Mrs. Scott was the same age as my Aunts. ... No, that's not true at all. Daddy was over sixty years old when he married Mom. My Aunts' _daughters_ were older than my date today.

Ooh, oh. Okay. This was going to be just ... _dandy._

* * *

**A/N:** _Bleh!_Poor Mel-mel's went right there. Nothing like setting yourself up for a lovely and romantic night out with your date, eh? Isn't that right, Mel-mel? (I just loves me my little Mel-mel.)

Okay, and this is totes btw, but ... I met Mel at happy hour tonight. After I just got fired (yeah, just before Christmas, but a lot of us got let go ... funding, you know? and the bottom line), I met with some of my old coworkers and there was this new girl there and she looked ... a lot like Mel's mom's daughter (don't ask how I know that, okay?) and she was from ... Persia, okay? Sweet, sweet girl, chestnut hair tied up at the back and with the aquiline nose and the deep, _penetrating_ brown eyes and ...

So, anyway, I'm usually the life of the party (girl, white, with all Indian guys), but tonight she walked away with the show, and I didn't mind the way she walked, if you know what I mean, just so ... _God! ... _sweet!

I wish I could be sweet like that, you know? Funny and smart and friendly with the guys and ... all that.

Maybe someday I'll grow up to be a self-possessed young woman who can laugh at the jokes and not mind the looks and be one of the guys and be herself all at the same time, and maybe someday ... idk ... maybe someday is today, and I can be happy to be me, and like the girl who just lost her job but not her friends, who can walk away from something and know she did her best and know everybody else knows that, too, and are sorry she's leaving, and be proud that they liked working with her.

You know, my day just got a whole lot better than it was, because hearing my old boss just ... _praising me ... _and what I did, and liking everybody there, and that's a really big step for me, just happy to be with people who are happy and having fun at a silly happy hour, but it's not, really, it's a time for us to get together and just remember the good times and have a good time right now. I ... liked that. I liked that a lot.

Okay, sweeties, short chapter, followed by a short chapter. Maybe they'll all be short, but, knowing me, that's one 'maybe' that maybe won't be so true, because both Anne and Mel-mel have some things to ... address with themselves and each other.

... but don't we all?

I know I do.

I love you, my sweeties.

kisses, little `phfina


	3. Dancing

**Chapter summary:** Yes, I took ballet, and mandolin lessons, too, by the way, so I could sing and dance. But that's not the kind of dance I do now, and that's not what I'm talking about here. Unless, of course, a client _wants_ me to dance, but now-a-days that request usually led to other things, anyway.

* * *

There's a certain ... dance you do. With everybody. There's a certain way you have to look, there's a way of carrying yourself.

I'm a whore.

Right? I'm a whore, but I can't look like that, I can't dress slutty. That's not the point, and besides, looking like something the cat dragged in would get me an invitation to leave these five-star establishments I frequented. They have a reputation to maintain, and I have to respect that.

So there's a way to be. I have to walk in like I belong there, no: like I own the place. This is my hotel lobby; I'm going up to my room.

Of course, it's all a lie. I mean, like, how many times have I walked through this lobby, or any of the other lobbies on Times square or Manhattan?

The staff 'knew' me ... or knew who and what I was, and I 'knew' them.

So we did this little dance. I pretended I belonged in these places, and they pretended they didn't see me.

I was just another young woman, well-dressed, coming back from visiting the sights of the city, in the middle of the day, and I just so happened to do this once or twice a day, or a week, or whatever, or ...

Or, in reality, far, far too often for someone staying at their hotel. I don't live at the hotel. I'm not the daughter of a French diplomat (although I suppose I could pass for it ... ooh! a new approach!)

A pretense.

My life.

And that can wear on a person's ... soul. Pretending to be something, pretending to have a purpose, and projecting strength and confidence, but knowing that ... all that was needed was for one person to say, 'Excuse me, Miss ...'

And it would all fall apart. And I would be asked to leave, and not to come back. And the shame of that. I'm an 'escort,' but being escorted off the premises by the hotel security, and everybody staring, and wondering, 'what did that girl do?' And some of them not wondering, but knowing.

Knowing that underneath my well-dressed and well-mannered façade, that I was just what I was: a common whore. And knowing that people know that? The hotel guesses in the well-appointed lobby? The entire hotel staff? The security personnel, escorting me out of the lobby, quietly, so as not to make a scene and tarnish the reputation of the hotel?

Knowing that? And bearing that knowledge on your soul? You're not a professional model with a studio apartment in NYC, Melissa, you're just a lowlife scum, a slut, a cunt.

A whore. A whore with no life, going nowhere, with no purpose other than to satisfy the needs of some who paid (sometimes), and for the rest, who satisfied the needs of them looking down at you and thinking they know what you are, and thinking the world would've been a better place if you had never been born.

And thanking God that they aren't your parents, and how could your parents ever let somebody like you sink so low knowing what you did, or if they didn't know, what would they think if they ever found out?

Wouldn't anyone with any shame just kill herself before she sunk as low as that girl?

And knowing that they're right.

But I was here with a purpose, a reason. I was visiting a ... 'friend.'

Yeah: a 'friend.'

Thin cover, and that would work, what, one time?

But that's all I needed: a thin, gossamer cover, to hide the reality of what I am, so we all could pretend, and the hotel staff could get on with their jobs, and I could get on with mine.

I walked, confidently through the lobby of the Affinia hotel, a nice place, a 'boutique,' walked passed the impeccable lobby with über-modern couches designed like ... what? the ninth hole floating in a sand trap of a Andrew Palmer-designed golf course for God's sake? I passed that, wondering what had the world come to that people had to lounge on modern Art like that and how much did that cost to design for this boutique hotel and couldn't they have just given the money to somebody who obviously needed it more to pay next month's rent? Somebody like me?

I passed all that to the elevators, chose the seventeenth floor, and made my ascent to meet my ... _rendezvous,_ like I had done hundreds of times before.

I've done this so, so many times, but the first time for me was always ... nerve-wracking. The second time, fine. I knew her (or him), and she (or he) knew me, and we knew what we needed to do with the visit, like: skip the pleasantries and head to the bed and fuck each others' brains out, or no: we needed to relax and unwind from her tiring day with a glass of red and some light conversation, first, or no: we were out going to a dance club, and dancing, and dancing, and dancing (and drinking) the night away, and checking out other hot chicks and making comments: "Ooh, she's hot!" or "That sweater just doesn't work for her" or "That girl over there is so hitting on her girl friend, and her friend has, like, no clue, doesn't she?"

Or whatever. The second time was always so much easier, because I knew her, and she knew me, and we could work with each other without the awkward, 'who are you and what are you like' phase that I always suffered through on the first date.

But the first time, even if a girl came right up to me and kissed me on the mouth, hard, that was like so obvious what she wanted, wasn't it?

No, it's not, because we still needed to figure out what, exactly, she needed and what turned her off, and we needed to figure out what I could take and what I could give, and what I couldn't.

I'm a whore, yes, so you can just fuck me, yes?

Well, yeah, but ...

But it's not like that. Not for Sarah's girls, not for me. Our client's weren't just buying a quick fuck or a quick fix, because if they were, they would've contacted a service that provided their ... services for so much less. Even if a girl pounced on me, jumping my bones there was still the (instantaneous, I grant you) before, the during, and the after, and every phase was so important to her happiness, and ...

And we're all women here, right? So you know what I mean, that during the fuck, nothing (well, almost nothing), is physical. It's all very much what I'm feeling, as I'm fucking you, and my feeling, as a girl, is very much tied up with how you're feeling.

Sometimes it does get ridiculous, doesn't it?

"Oh, I was waiting for you to cum, but it felt like you didn't like it, so I just ... well ..."

"But I was waiting for you to cum, too, and when I felt the mood go away in you, I felt like ... so ..."

I mean, seriously, girls! Come on!

Guys are lucky that way, I guess, because it's _all_ physical for them, and there's a very clear ending for them, and then they're just done. I mean, guys wanting to talk afterward?

Guys don't even want to talk, period! And after they're done with their business, they just want to get the fuck out the door, and the only thing they wonder (if they do) is how long they have to wait to leave to be polite and not hurt the girl's feelings.

Which guys don't understand at all.

Me, still laying on the bed, recovering from the latest marathon fuck-session: "You know girls have feelings, don't you, John?"

John: "Uh ... yeah, sure. Um. I gotta go now, Mel, it was nice seeing you again."

Me: "Yeah, sure, ... see you next time."

John, brightening: "Yeah, cool! Later, Mel."

And he's gone.

And really, that's a good conversation with a guy. I bet John was actually pleased he made the effort to have a conversation with a girl and not, at the same time, be checking his fantasy football stats on is phone.

_FUCKING GUYS! LISTEN TO ME! DON'T BE FUCKING CHECKING YOUR PHONE WHEN YOU'RE TALKING WITH A GIRL! GOD!_

And then there's the whole calling your girlfriend from work when you're taking a shit?

Seriously, don't get me started on that. Why do guys do that? Emily's boyfriend did that to her once. I was sitting right there at an sbux with her during her lunch break, and this no-life creep calls her from work and he's obviously on the shitter?

I mean: what the fuck are do guy like that think?

Oh, yeah, right. Guys like that don't think, because if they did, then they'd think: "Hm, calling my girlfriend is the same level of importance as me taking a shit. And she knows this. I wonder how she feels about that."

And you wonder why Emily 'turns tricks' (she _fucking doesn't)_ with much older _women_ (you hear that, you creep?) who _listen to her _and _care for her_ and _mother her with love and affection?_

Yeah, guys: girls have feelings, and they know _everything!_ You hear me? _Everything!_ So catch a fucking God-damn clue! And fucking love your girl and pay attention to her and God-damn respect her, or else, when she does catch a fucking clue about you, _finally! ..._

You'll lose the best thing you ever had going for you in your life.

The elevator doors opened.

God. How did I get on that kick? Other people, normal people, when they ride the elevator, stare blankly at the numbers of the passing floors, ...

... and then there's me.

I just fucking wish, just fucking once, just one time in my life, that I was a normal girl with normal concerns, and didn't always have to be the best, or the wildest, or the worst, or all three at the same time. I just wish I were a normal girl with normal, boring problems, living her normal life.

But no. I'm this.

I stepped out of the elevator, proud of not having raised one eyebrow in the lobby on my way here, and prepared myself for the real show.

My dance with Mrs. 'Anne Scott.'

I checked my notes for her suite number again, just to be sure, looked at the floor plan, and strode purposefully, confidently, to where my next conquest was.

I was the strong one. I was the powerful one, and she had no idea what was coming her way.

Me. I was coming her way.

And I was going to fucking rock her world.

And she was going to love every second of it.

* * *

**A/N:** Um, ... gulp! Wow! Little Mel-mel's gotten all empowered, and 'I am woman; I am strong!' and stuff. So, like: ...

1. Where the hell did that all come from?

2. Where can I get me some o' her?

and ...

3. ...

Um, never mind, there is no 3.

_`phfina blushes and scampers off._


End file.
